


Cold Open

by ParadoxR



Series: The Rest You Earn [4]
Category: Stargate (1994), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Beginnings, F/M, Gen, Military, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-15 06:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8045560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: You’d think geeks and special ops guys would get along better than this. Standalone.





	1. In the Blind Side

**SGC Briefing Room, 2051 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

“Well that’s just great,  _ Doctor _ . My sergeants love it when their clandestine insertion vehicles  _ glow in the dark. _ ”

Sam looks past the jab into the Gate Room flashing blue with another failed dial. They’ve been working nonstop since Abydos, but she still doesn’t like repeatedly tearing apart space-time. “If the receiving Gate was clear, we think that connection could hold for up to thirty minutes. Appendix R details wormhole visibility distances by planet diameter and atmospheric composition.”

“So you geeks called us in here to fight a war through a gigantic glow-in-the-dark bulls-eye?” It’s the same guy again, their senior Army captain and self-appointed thorn in Sam’s side.

She steps away from the window to address the rest of the Army-element leaders wedged around the table. “We’re working on fire support technologies, but unfortunately neither Earth nor Goa’uld manned aircraft can operate through the Gate. Project Giza has extensive research in Gate-compliant UAVs and insect drones.”

“Fantastic.” The captain rolls his eyes yet again. “I’ve always wanted to bet my guys’ lives on some geek UAV taking out a Mach one-thousand alien fighter jet.”

“Thirteen hundred.” Sam walks past him to the podium. “Regardless, they’re well out of our league, and Jaffa use them almost like we use cars. We’ll eventually retrofit flight simulators, but flying off-world will still require stealing ships in-situ.”

That gets her more than a few slack jaws. “Doctor, we’re  _ special ops _ commandos, not Batman. You’ll notice there’s no room for pilot wings on _our_ uniforms.” The Army captain takes this opportunity to leer at her decidedly emptier chest.

Sam stares back flatly. She’s long since learned that combat won’t decorate her with much more than blood and broken bones. “Jaffa pilots spend decades in the cockpit, but most teenagers can fly basic maneuvers. I’m hoping we can all live up to some alien teenagers once there’s no cause to practice helicopter insertions and combat jumps.” She may have tilted her head too theatrically there.

Captain Reid scowls angrily. “I’m sorry,  _ we _ ? Someone’s taking  _ you  _ out there?”

Jack rolls his eyes and finally leans into the complainer’s vision. “That’s really not your problem, Captain. But I promise if a science team ever needs another officer on the ground, you’re now my first choice.”

Sam drops her own frown into the podium automatically. “So the first planet you’re all likely to actually visit is wherever I set up DHD training. We’ll have about a week of battlefield repair and scenario training at first so that you can start other off-world workup, but plan on six-plus months total as we discover other important systems and weapons.”

Reid keeps his frown but does slightly better with his attitude. “And how exactly do we secure a planet in a galaxy full of Death Gliders and wormholes?”

Sam tries not to be annoyed at that annoyingly reasonable question. “We’re finishing an expeditionary Iris, and Project Giza has a lot of work in long-term surveillance. I’m also convinced we can use the Abydos Cartouche to refit Doppler, stellar, Stark, Zeeman, recoil, and phase shifts even for addresses Ra didn’t record. Those planets are more likely to be abandoned. And of course Jaffa are susceptible to our artillery and other arms.”

“And we’re susceptible to plasma blasts.” Reid renews his scowl. “We have seven dead bodies that prove that already, and we’re gonna trust  _ you _ to fix it based on the nothing you’ve managed so far?”

Sam white-knuckles the wobbling podium. If one more person whines about how Project Giza hasn’t saved Earth in the  _ fifty-one hours  _ since O’Neill came clean, she’s going to start a fistfight she can’t win. “I’m confident we can outmaneuver the Goa’uld engineers. It’ll be an arms race, but we’ll chiefly need—”

“Prescient leadership?” Reid snorts. “I’d love to shack up in your cute little Ivory Tower and  _ read  _ my way into a job, Doctor. But unfortunately, some of us have to lead and die down in the real world. You know, where it takes relevant experience to make important decisions. You’ve heard of it?”

The podium wobbles as Sam blows past it. “ _ Captain  _ Reid, your men are not the only ones getting smashed in the blind side.” She stops flat against the briefing room table. “I have a hundred scientists and technicians outside who haven’t slept in two days trying to reestablish what they were fired for doing  _ correctly _ . If you don’t like how things are going down here, try harder.” Her right knee wavers as she stops, but Sam’s pretty sure no one can see it. Thank God for dress trousers. She lets the table waver between amusement and impress as she goes back to her spot.

She seems to win the standoff, though, and Captain Reid’s own boss decides he’s seen enough to call it. “I’d like to assure everyone here that any man with a green beret is absolutely the cooperative soldier-diplomat he’s trained to be.” The Army colonel levels a look at Reid and his counterparts. “And if he’s not, I’m happy to rip the Special Forces tab off his uniform.”

Jack chokes back his smirk quickly. “You know, Captain Carter, I think that’s enough for now.” He nudges Daniel as Carter does the closest thing she ever does to relaxing. Jack’s glad she doesn’t need the babysitting, though. Not that he wouldn’t be just as upset as these guys are about some hotshot from a totally different career field coming in to watch his men’s backs. But Carter’s useful, and at least Jack would handle it privately. …Except for that one time when he didn’t. About her. Like two days ago. Jack drops a hand onto Daniel’s notes to make him stop stalling and get up.

Daniel stands nervously and unfolds his well-stuffed binder on the podium. And then pretends to read off it. “Ahem. So my name is Doctor Daniel Jackson, and my doctorates are in archeology, anthropology, and linguistics. I also became a citizen of the first planet we reached, Abydos.” He fiddles with the slide deck for too long before convincing himself to look up.

Jack offers him something like a supportive look from a sea of surprisingly attentive black suits and scattered uniforms.

Daniel coughs nervously. “So the Abydonians—the denizens of Abydos who number approximately five hundred thousand—were transplanted from pre-dynastic Ancient Egypt approximately eight thousand years before the Common Era.” He starts gesturing at the sketched map. “The planet remains in the Bronze Age technologically, but is self-sustaining despite severely limited habitability. Only eight million hectares around the naquadah mines were ever terraformed, and only the river valley is cultivable. This may make its social structures appear artificially similar to the Nile River Valley, but in fact the centrality of the naquadah mines results in vastly different power relationships. Nonetheless, the planet’s liturgical  _ lingua franca  _ is largely inter-intelligible with Coptic, though the vernaculars have evolved somewhat from Archaic Egyptian and exhibit significant phonetic and phonological changes including devoicing and tonogenesis.”

Someone fakes a quiet snore.

The Army colonel glares at his senior captain. Again. “Doctor Jackson, thank you very much, but unfortunately we’re under a serious time crunch right now. Do you have anything that’s more…applicable?”

Daniel stutters to a stop. “Uh, sure. Colonel…Lange.” He pushes up his glasses at the man Sam just won over. “We’ve learned a lot from the Abydonians, but I can’t say I know yet how to replicate what they did against Ra. It’s not going to be an easy process.”

The table stares at him skeptically. “Doctor Jackson…” The colonel steals a look at O’Neill, who’s apparently decided not to speak up. He puffs. “Look, Doctor. More Abydos-style rebellions is exactly what we  _ do not _ want. I trust you see now how destabilizing it was last time. Our entire career track exists to  _ prevent _ that on Earth.”

Daniel shifts under the correction. “Right, Colonel. But the Goa’uld are really nothing like what you’ve fought before. They’re genetically programmed to enslave humans, and Earth is the motherlode. We can’t just persuade them away.”

The soldier frowns sharply. “Doctor, I’m not going to sit here while you tell me to  _ exterminate _ an entire species you’ve barely met. You certainly didn’t get Master Teal’c here like that. For all you know there are good Goa’uld out there!”

Daniel makes himself breathe slowly. He still can’t even look at Teal’c. “Goa’uld are not Jaffa, Colonel. But as long as we deal with Apophis and stay under the radar, you should have some time to figure out more.”

The older man thumps the table, fully losing patience. “ _ Under the radar? _ An alien god-king just showed up on our doorstep for the first time in seventy years looking for his new queen, and you think we’re still  _ under the radar _ ?”

Daniel stumbles from frustrated into confused with a furrowed brow. “I’m sorry, what—”

“He’s saying someone on your ungrateful rock told Apophis who killed Ra!” The tension in the room finally explodes as Captain Reid slams the table next to his CO.

Daniel’s mouth flaps. “You-you don’t know that. Our guards were always ready; no one came through when our Gate was unburied.”

Captain Reid physically launches at him. “ _ Your  _ guards were ready?! There are four folded flags three feet from your snot-nosed face because you didn’t to tell us how to handle that!”

Daniel grips the podium to keep it between them. “I had nothing to do with that.”

Reid reaches for him. “You buried that Gate. You knew about spaceships, plasma weapons. You were willing to risk  _ Earth _ on the assumption no one else would fly to where Ra died?! And now that we’ve been attacked, you cut us off again anyway?!”

“ _ Captain Reid! _ ” Jack stops waiting for Daniel to weasel out and moves to separate them both.

“No, Jack, it’s fine.” Daniel’s knuckles turn white against the podium. “We have no idea why Apophis came to Earth. Maybe it was luck, or maybe Goa’uld can track Gate addresses; maybe Ra relayed it somewhere before he died. Abydos might have a few bad eggs, but—”

“Doesn’t  _ any _ of that sound important to figure out?!” Reid jerks the podium off the floor. “My men are going to die for that, you jagoff! You’re claiming to’ve started the largest war of succession in the history of the known universe!”

“ _ Captain Reid! _ ” Now the soldier has both colonels on him. “Sit. Down.” His Army boss yanks him sideways and takes his place, blocking Jackson and addressing the whole room of pissed-off commandos. “My guys. We have a rescue mission to work up. We’re missing three airmen’s bodies, and at least one of them Apophis would be an idiot not to revive and question about Teal’c’s escape. That’s still your wheelhouse, right, Captain Reid?”

Reid plops down at an irate attention. “Yes. Sir.”

“Good. Take your SG-5 and whoever else you need. And take Carter.” The Army colonel sizes up the youngest officer in the room again. “She just volunteered as planning lead.”

Sam tries not to gape at the number of special ops captains that just pissed off. “Sir, of course I need to be deeply involved in this, but surely you have others senior and—”

“And yet you seem to be the only person who has any idea what the hell is going on.” Lange bounces a quick look off O’Neill. “Decision’s made. Everybody work together or resign.”

Nobody tries to answer that.

Daniel is still staring at the back of the colonel’s green Army service jacket. He finally taps the man on the shoulder. “That rescue mission.” He clears the grit from his throat. “There are more than just two dead airmen. People who are definitely alive.”

The colonel turns around to study him. “Doctor. My people are about to rehearse sending some very good, very mortal men out on the most dangerous rescue mission in the history of humanity. Do you understand how good a reason I need to do that? A servicemember likely being repeatedly tortured to death for information that could  _ destroy our entire planet  _ might do it. A half-cocked kidnapping of the new hegemon’s  _ wife _ with no idea of the fallout definitely does not.  I should hope you’ve learned not to wantonly provoke unknown superpowers by this point.”

Daniel stares back blankly until his head jerks away. He ends up squinting at eight folded flags.


	2. Have to Make It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my beta, bethanyactually. Rated for cursing. Technically canon and roughly reality compliant, minus the whole wormhole thing. Ship is brief and no more than the show on a light day.

Daniel squeezes his temples at the knock on his office door. He really doesn’t want to deal with people right now, especially these people. It’s been almost an hour since the last briefing, and he has no desire to relive it. _‘Page 83: Again by the Jaffa Teal’c’s account, Goa’uld directly control all centers of gravity for Jaffa armies, including technology hubs and communications foci. In turn, Jaffa ostensibly view most Gate technology via a type of mystical paradigm common in cultural borrowing.’_

The knock repeats itself as Daniel’s eyes cross at his computer screen. He’s being ridiculous; the door is open. “Come in.”

“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, Doctor.” The towering Special Forces colonel throws his shadow into the office.

Daniel was really hoping if he didn’t look up it’d turn out to be someone else. He grunts something in German and fakes absentminded professorism into his computer screen.

A loud thunk lands on his desk.

Daniel jerks up to what turns out to be a large box in a green retail bag. The tall soldier stands towering over it, like some kind of deadly beanpole with an Ivy League crew cut.

“ _Guten tag_ to you too, Doctor. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lange. I currently command the four hundred soldiers of the Army Special Forces battalion in Stuttgart, Germany and am directly responsible for operations across all of Eastern Europe. I’ve led men in this service for over eighteen years, and my first master’s degree is in organizational psychology. I’m now Colonel Makepeace’s 2IC for all the SG teams.” He releases a tired sigh. “Unfortunately, none of that stops me from sometimes being an ass. I really am sorry about your wife and brother-in-law, Doctor. You seem like a reasonable guy. I got you something.”

Daniel blinks at the mystery box crowding his desk. “Oh.”

Lange opens it without fanfare and unpacks the coffeemaker. “O’Neill mentioned it.”

Daniel preoccupies himself by looking at the machine. It’s a nice model, and not cheap. “That’s nice of him.”

“Actually he called me an enabler.” Lange drops his smirk into a grimace. “But I know I’d be a hot mess if some egomaniacal warlord abducted Lorie. I’d just avoid orchestrating an interstellar war over it.”

Daniel stares at the ‘on’ button of the unplugged device. “You really think I’m wrong about all this.”

“I have no idea whether you’re wrong.” Lange sounds almost surprised he’d suggest it. “I only know you’re being irrational, and my men pay that in blood. You’ll find we have a very low tolerance for personal egotism or bloodlust in special operations.” He sits down and moves into the civilian’s gaze. “Look, Doctor, I want to get along with you. You seem like a very valuable guy. But you need to understand something point blank. Every leader around you in that room, we all just took responsibility for a conflict that could affect some twelve billion people. And they are _all_ somebody’s wife.”

Daniel jerks his head away before he can stop it. “I know that.”

“And we cannot let anyone, much less someone with zero relevant training or experience, chase the hegemon’s _palace guard_ around the galaxy trying to kidnap their queen.” Lange pushes further into the doctor’s view.

Daniel shifts away again. “So what do _you_ want to do?”

“One day I’d like to get you professional enough to ask what’s really going on before you push for action scenes.” The colonel exhales and leans against his rusted chair. “But what I need right now is information. That’s how special ops runs, Doctor, information and relationships. It’s time you got less rash about both, because neither comes at the end of nuke. If the Cold War had bred many colonels that impulsive, you wouldn’t’ve been born.”

Daniel stares at the wall and suddenly wonders why Jack isn’t here. He’s lost the energy to defend him. “You’d really be fine with another Goa’uld running the galaxy.”

“This has nothing to do with what I _want_ , Doctor.” The soldier thumps the table in vexation. “This is about how many of my nation’s heroes I will put in _graves_ to get what I want. It’s high time you decide whether you want victory or revenge, because you’ll find out very quickly that you rarely get both.”

Daniel breaks with a sharpness he wasn’t expecting. “That’s…insightful.”

The colonel re-deflates in his seat. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s what the ‘colonel’ thing’s supposed to mean in the end. Victory doesn’t come from killing an enemy, Doctor. It comes from taking something from him that he can’t afford to _lose_. Men like me spend our entire careers learning to map that out, and I’m not convinced this has much do with massacring snakes.”

Daniel looks around, though he isn’t sure for what. “And if you’re wrong?”

“Then unfortunately that’s the difference between you and me, Doctor.” He frowns soberly. “Your job is to study history. One way or another, I have to make it.”

Daniel keeps staring at the tabletop as the soldier moves around to set up the coffeemaker.

“Fortunately, you’re an archeologist, and I’m a career special ops officer with entire companies of the nation’s best commando spies and professional soldier-diplomats whose specialties range from engineering or healthcare. So really it all works out.” The colonel reaches over to snag the coffee pot but still can’t get Jackson to look at him. “Just as long as you understand they need a distraught husband out there like they need a fighter pilot or a financial mogul.”

“I’m more than that. I’ve been there.” Daniel suddenly jerks into responsiveness. “I have a year of irreplicable experience from Abydos. You don’t have anything like that.”

“I have several hundred things like that.” Lange huffs lightly. “Sergeants with decades embedded in local villages, building up indigenous forces from the Balkans to the Caribbean.” He tosses Jackson the few coffee samples that were in the bag. “But I do take your point. If you’re actually unique enough to warrant the risk, I’m sure you’ll prove it. Because I will not put your dreams, no matter how noble, above my men’s rights to do their jobs and hug their children again.”

Daniel clips the machine closed. “And how can I convince you if you won’t let me out there again?” He grimaces at his own tone and then at his innate desire to sound tactful.

The colonel chuckles. “Same way every other goddamn one of us ever has. You think some hero Ranger can trot off the battlefield and ask to run a Haitian town the next year?’”

“…Of course not.” Daniel’s brow knits at the Ranger tab on the colonel’s shoulder.

“No.” Lange smirks at the hesitation. “And not just because he sounds like a self-involved glory chaser. This takes years, Doctor. No one’s naturally great at this job; it’d be like hiring an archeologist as a neurosurgeon because he’s smart and his hands are steady.”

Daniel watches the coffee drip and tries to determine how long it’ll take to be over.

Lange cocks his head patiently. “Anyway. What’s your real view on handling Apophis?”

Daniel sighs and makes himself look across at the soldier. “I guess I have no idea.”

The soldier nods sharply. “Glad we’re back on the same page.”

 

Daniel isn’t sure how it happened, but he’s finished his second coffee, and Lange is still here talking with him. Mostly _to_ him; the guy’s a bit of a talker. Daniel sorts through the remaining sample flavors and listens to the soldier ramble on about village diplomacy like he’s writing one of the history textbooks stacked behind him.

“…All I’m saying is, what’re the chances a given planet even has the vernacular for ‘explorer’? I’m betting most of them have never met strangers, or at least never met nice ones.”

Daniel refills his mug with a nod. “Tribal first contacts on Earth have a distinctly unencouraging record for deep-seated sociocultural reasons. I’m not sure I would’ve gone to Abydos at all if I hadn’t assumed we’d meet advanced Gate builders.”

Lange crosses his ankles across the desk. “Yeah, you’re lucky they’re at least sovereign traders. We’ll need an entire intelligence specialty devoted to dissecting that from UAV footage, because I am not about to pull an Operation Auca on my men.” He scribbles another note on his legal pad.

Daniel scrubs at his neck. They haven’t mentioned his soldiers in a while. “You think they’re still angry at me?”

Lange cocks his head interestedly. “I think you’ll want to cool it on the personal aims around guys who’ve out-trained everyone on Earth, left their families behind, and sacrificed decades of their lives to watch their closest friends die saving hundreds of unknown civilians and other soldiers who can’t dream of their experience.”

Daniel puffs a breath. “Make sense.”

“Glad you think so.” The colonel checks his watch and smirks with an eagerness that should’ve worried Daniel from the start. “Come on.”

Daniel looks up from his coffee curiously. “For what?”

“More advice.”


	3. Let Me Try

Sam braces against the heated wall and scans for dangerous movement. This is the ninth section of the miniature Goa’uld base, and her HAZMAT gear is starting to take its toll again. Combat gets asymptotically more nuanced and unforgiving the closer you get to the enemy, much less going alone, clandestinely, through an unknown fortress after a chemical attack. It’s not a highly trained skillset for anyone whose career is running expeditionary scientific teams or debugging special ops helicopters. But this is Sam’s fifth run, and she fully intends to do it until her lungs bleed. And she passes.

Sam clears all ten rooms with only two shots fired and blinks at the bright, clear air of the converted missile silo. The special ops teams are already in the main bunker doing real work, but she refrains from heaving out loud anyway.

Unfortunately that effort can’t spare her the attention of their supervising captain. Captain Reid comes up and dismisses the corporal from the monitoring station, no doubt so he can resume his new hobby of mocking every minor misstep that’s gotten her or a civilian target killed thus far. “Let’s see. Huh. Looks like you passed.” He snorts over his disappointment. “Next time I want my guys wounded four times in one exfil, you’re my first call.”

Sam stops next to the Special Forces captain coolly. “I’d hope you have better people for a situation like that.” She has to force her jaw to say it, but Sam flatly refuses to be ashamed that headquarters bans her from the real training pipeline. She’s doing as well as any good amateur. And that’s okay.

She also pivots around and dismembers a sparring dummy with her training knife.

Reid sidesteps the silent carnage automatically. “You do get that the real ones fight back, right?” Though he’s wearing a look of surprise that would probably embarrass him.

Sam tucks her knife back while pretending that that was entirely mature. He’s right, of course. Four years as a part-time light combat engineer means she still knows about as much special ops as a navigator or a neurosurgeon. But between the Gulf War and Project Giza, she’s also completely had her fill of people personally requesting her for deadly situations and then slamming doors in her face.

Reid snorts again and goes back to watching his men at the main bunker’s screens.

Sam finally lets herself exhale. She always hates handling new teams, but she’s long since learned to seem a bitch over a coward. Even when that means spraining her wrist arm-wrestling or enduring naked F-16 jokes when _she’s_ the one who developed their high-gravity training. You’re welcome, by the way, Kawalsky. Sam shakes it off and jogs after Reid.

The main bunker he’s watching really is an impressive feat for as quickly as their people set it up. The smaller one she’s been trying is just upgraded from a Project Giza system, but this one is labyrinthine and all new. It’s not the exact base where Airmen Weterings might be, but Sam’s told it’s close enough to be useful to the commandos. Apophis’s Gate Room at least is accurate, with its dense foam Stargate positioned in the bay. That part is hers from Project Giza; most of the rest is special ops expertise guided by Teal’c’s sketches.

Sam squints through the smoke on television monitors on her way over. The wooden DHD her shop just made is already spattered with hours’ worth of training rounds. Apparently she needs to emphasize the importance of not destroying your ride home. Sam stops at the opposite end of the station from Captain Reid and points at Monitor Five.

He waves her off. “I already told your crew we need that portable shield immediately.” She freezes, which Reid ignores in favor of a folder in front of him. “My guys just updated what they want.”

Sam counts for four before clamping down on a retort on how chains of command work and reaching for the folder. “I see that includes making battlefield repair effectively impossible.” She really is aiming for professional rather than irritated.

Reid studies at the monitors dryly. “That’s the crap they put _you_ here to supervise, right? Because you were busy earlier.” He jabs a thumb at the smaller bunker she took five tries to clear.

Sam revises the blueprint notes silently and waves over a guard to deliver them. “Anything more your guys need?”

Reid leans down to scribble another suggestion for his men. “Besides a version of you that’s actually qualified for this?”

Sam’s eyes stay fixed on the monitors. “If there’s a Stargate engineer with twenty months of battlefield marksmanship, combat engineering, area defense, high-gravity operations, and advanced combatives that you like better, go ahead and call them.”

He rolls his eyes. “How about you teach us what we actually _need_ from you and then head back to your lab bench?”

Sam makes herself snort as they continue not looking at each other. “I didn’t just fall off some lab bench.”

“Some cockpit?” He smirks broadly. “Or your boss’s bed?”

Sam’s jaw clamps audibly before she can stop it. Dammit.

He stops just short of laughing at her. “You know we need much better remote surveillance for the farther corridors. And I want a _guarantee_ that the through-Gate snipers are going to work. Silently.” He stabs his pen. “I’m not sending my men in there after every bullet misses because of Doppler-Stark-unaligned-whateverthefuck or some better Goa’uld jammer-forceshield. And prioritize that remote dialing robot.” His eyes are still skimming the monitor bank.

Sam flips open her own top folder and ignores the fact that they’re flatly not looking at each other. “Current priority order – DHD shield with remote dialing mechanism and battlefield repair access, through-Gate transport stabilization, through-Gate nano-surveillance and jamming devices, personal plasma and chemical countermeasures, through-Gate adaptive communication systems.”

Reid grimaces in agreement, because apparently that’s how he agrees with her. “You’re not actually going to have any of that for months at least, are you?” Something resembling honest concern slips into his voice.

It tugs at Sam in a way she’d rather it didn’t. “Unfortunately. We’ve found out the hostile situation far too late to have any development done.”

“This is such a goatfuck.” Reid spits at the empty room and goes back to writing rehearsal notes.

Sam loosens her posture slightly. “You know they’ll call off the rescue if we can’t figure this out.” Which, if it continues to rely on spontaneously inventing entirely new technologies and tactical skillsets, they definitely can’t.

The soldier sucks in a deep breath and finally looks at her. “I meant the whole war.”

Sam wavers a little at his expression. She can’t find a way argue with it, not after Giza’s long belabored efforts to avoid exactly this problem and still not knowing until this week. She and every other captain on this planet would’ve lost their commands on the spot for _suggesting_ a manned visit to an unsurveilled population with a _nuclear bomb._ The two junior officers share that look for barely a second, but Sam finds its annoyingly difficult to jerk away. Both their eyes jump back to the monitors simultaneously. They’re a few minutes from the next mission rehearsal, and she’d rather serve them in silence.

“Sorry.”

It’s so terse Sam’s not quite sure she heard it.

Reid sighs. “I mean, not that I don’t have my doubts about how you got here.”

Sam inhales sharply as she turns on him. “Do you know how many female officers there are in Air Force Special Operations right now?”

Reid blinks at the heat in her voice.

She tries to straighten her tone. “In jobs open to us, that we’ve already bled for, helicopters, Security Forces.” She doesn’t give him long enough to answer. “Zero.”

Reid reopens his mouth but gives up when she cuts him off again.

“I didn’t get here by being smart, _Captain_ .” She keeps herself from glowering. Sort of. “I got here because I stood out upgrading combat helos, survived a coordinated shoot-down, and spent _years_ qualifying to lead through-Gate experimentation. Being smart is barely the reason they _let_ me try out in the first place.” Sam re-aims for instructive and lands back on annoyed. “Otherwise I’d be just another perfectly capable woman who’d never met you.” And wouldn’t that’ve sucked.

It takes another two minutes of Sam and Captain Reid standing in silence for the rescue team to finish prepping another full mission rehearsal. It’s a big team now, bigger than either officer would like with its thirty sergeants plus the two of them. But unfortunately they proved in previous rehearsals that you can’t clandestinely dial a Stargate on a Goa’uld military base. Sam goes back to analyzing Teal’c’s Command Center sketches, and Reid still hasn’t looked at her by the time he signals the start of the mission.

The first minute of the assault is virtually silent. Five remote quadcopters buzz through the stabilized foam Gate and model the full room in seconds. That much Project Giza can do; the rest is twenty expert marksmen simultaneously aiming through the event horizon. The Giza pilots rehearse confirming kills, and the whole thing ends in thirty-nine seconds. The assault team crosses through the Gate and sweeps to the corridor with squads branching toward the prison, Command Center, and Sarcophagus Quarters.

Reid leaves to join the rear security team as they flow silently into the Gate Room. No one’s spoken, and the loudest noises from all thirty men in the bunker are muffled knife strikes and quietly buzzing rotor blades. Sam and her volunteer escort are the only two left waiting for their go-ahead, and her nerves bite with marginally-trained instincts as she meets him. The senior sergeant doesn’t waver from video feed as she approaches, eyes scanning expertly with a decade longer on field missions than Sam and Reid combined. He gestures at the screens noiselessly as Sam tries to keep up. At least Earth is clearly winning for now, pushing forward with three casualties to maybe sixteen. It’s barely another minute before they’re cleared for travel.

Sam sucks in a breath and maneuvers through the foam Gate. She envisions the bumpy ride it’s been so far and hopes they have the adjustments close enough to keep bullets on target. At least on this mission they’ve all memorized the base layout, and she reviews it as they snake through the too-small bunker. Twelve hundred yards past a five watchful commandos, none of whom Sam actually sees. It’s another nine hundred for the Sarcophagus squad and three full levels to the prison, but if they can hold the Command Center they have a chance. They reach the Center within seconds of their assault squad breaching it, and Sam is immediately at work.

Or rather, she would be. The SGC hasn’t actually built a functioning Goa’uld Command Post in the sixteen hours since Chulak.

Instead she kneels beside her escort as he monitors the other squads’ progress. Jaffa are already attacking their foothold from all sides, and Sam feeds too her limited technical advice through him. He’s a rock of a man, a command sergeant major with unrivaled tactical insight even in this crowd. The few words he puts into the radio constitute some of the first of the entire mission, and it makes for a quiet minute as they await the prison break.

The corridor at her back suddenly explodes. Sam swings around instinctively, landing behind the correct console as her rifle finds its indent in her shoulder. Two doors blast inward as Jaffa drown them in pellet grenades and tear gas. The floodlights ignite, blinding her night vision as Sam yanks it off and checks her gas mask while melding into Earth’s tightened perimeter. Paint markers stream from her rifle into the strobing lights. They need to push out or they’ll be pinned for the heavy plasma guns.

Sam fires as she maneuvers, limited close-quarters-battle training picking her shots and positions through the gas mask and flickering smoke. The volleys all aim and adjust surgically with no thought, handling the sight picture and recoil as she tries to piece back together the big picture. They’re seconds away from evacuating now, which is only more dangerous until they merge their breached lines without shooting at each other. Sam takes a fistful of shrapnel from the elbow pad to forearm as she starts her first bound to the door.

She hears it then, barely through the clamor of retreating Jaffa. They’re not attuned to Goa’uld tactics yet, but she takes the bet and skids into the hallways on full auto. It’d be a rough way to die if that was a real plasma cannon.

Captain Reid calls off the rehearsal forty-five seconds later. Teal’c has fired the heavy artillery and fail-safed all the doors. Everyone from Earth dead. It’s the single largest loss of life in the history of United States Special Operations Command.

Again.

Sam rolls her shoulders painfully and emerges back into the light. She pulls off her helmet, night vision goggles, ear piece, gas mask, gloves, and outer rig and strips and cleans her rifle by rote.

Four dozen special ops sergeants and six captains are doing the same thing all around her, wearing either blackout uniforms and face paint or fake Jaffa gray. It’s amazing, if she takes to the time to look: fifty of the best commandos in the world crowded under a nuclear bunker trying to save the planet. There are literally seven hundred years of special ops experience in this room. She almost smiles, but it’s more dangerous than reassuring. Too many people are going to die for this war in the far reaches of the galaxy. And far more than if they’d gotten to plan it and train them.

Sam’s mission escort treads up to her and beats the dust off his uniform. “You know you sent a ricochet straight into my intelligence sergeant, ma’am.” His voice is unapologetic though appreciably discreet. “Or could’ve, if it hadn’t been a marking cartridge. Shredded his arm or worse.”

Sam swallows a curse and struggles to replace it with something. “I’m glad he’s alright.”

The sergeant major pulls her farther away from the men who already never get near her. “You’re a well-trained shot, ma’am, but you can’t trust it until you’re conditioned for Jaffa armor. And Goa’uld facility maneuvers. And extraterrestrial gravity and atmospherics. We’re all in the same boat, but I can’t have you blowing holes in my guys while we are.”

“Understood.” Sam nods resolutely. Figures the only time someone calls her ‘ma’am’ is when she metaphorically wounds one of her own guys. “You know, I’ve been thinking about how to replicate all that more closely. Not authentic gravity or armor, but some of the rest is clearer now.”

If the elder sergeant is surprised by the insight, he doesn’t show it. “My guys need supplies to shoot twenty hours a week, and the normal SGs’ll probably do the same for the first few months.”

Sam flips open her notepad automatically as she again tries to figure out how she’ll balance SG workup with basically creating an entire technical corps from scratch.

Captain Reid materializes next to both of them with a dark scowl and his automatic sense for her screwing up. “A word?”

The phrase characteristically includes neither ‘doctor’ nor ‘captain’, nor her name for that matter. Sam’s a pure blank to most of these guys. Sam walks out with him while trying to look in control of the situation for the fifty men staring at her.

Reid barges into his storeroom-cum-office. “Playtime’s over. Get out.”

Sam closes the door behind them too loudly. “I do not consider planning the rescue of a potential prisoner of war to be _playtime_ , Captain, no matter how unlikely its execution.”

“Yeah, and now I know how she got caught!” Reid slams the steel shelf above her head. “You didn’t even tell your _guards_ what might come under that damn tarp? You didn’t even work up _shields_ for them to stop staff blasts?!” He shoves her against the desk. “You better be goddamn proud of yourself! I’m supposed to risk my men’s lives because you couldn’t give a single second of shit about your own?!”

Sam pushes upright as the frigid metal bites into her thigh. “Do not tell me how much I care. I fought for months to get them and others read into the program after Abydos. No one told us a word about staff weapons. I fought so hard to save this place I sunk my career with it.”

He laughs darkly. “Then you are even fucking worse at this than I thought. You can’t even support the guys _guarding_ it?”

Sam finally jerks clear of him. “Do you have any idea what the Pentagon reads into a bird colonel launching a _preemptive nuclear strike_ on his first reconnaissance mission?” She clamps her jaw shut and prays that particular quote doesn’t leak.

“You got any other idiots you want to blame with your fucking excuses?” He comes up and shoves her again. “You know why I won’t call you ‘captain,’ _Samantha_? It’s because you’re not. It’s because of this crap.”

Sam skids the desk back to free herself. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Reid laughs and stays on her. “Real officers get called ‘officers’ because they _lead men_ . That’s what a line commission means, Doc. _Lead_ from lieutenant. You should’ve saved D.C. the trouble of kicking your ass out after captain, because you’re not getting higher command unless you’re on your knees.”

Sam raises an arm at his next hit, but he still manages to jab her so hard near the collar insignia that she chokes.

“I’m never gonna have to call you ‘major’, _Sam_ , so why the fuck should I call you ‘captain’?” The commando rips down her blocking arm and clamps her shoulder. “You wanna be some badass geek? Fine. But don’t do it on my men’s heads. Need some real advice? Find the job you should’ve started as a lieutenant and fucking _lead_ people with it. Because this is the real shit, _Doc_ , and I didn’t spend six years as an infantry, Ranger, and Special Forces leader to let my men get fucked over by some amateur.”

Sam looks down at the hands gripping her collar and shocks herself as she suddenly gets it. “I don’t think that’s your problem with me.”

It renews the scowl on Reid’s face. “Oh? You’re right, Doc, I also hate your hair.”

Sam straightens fully under his grip and jerks back. “I think you’re scared of me.”

He barks a laugh and shoves her away.

“That’s why you’re trying to make me quit.” Sam gestures at his exaggerated intimidation and resists the urge to shove him back. “So you can justify that I never would’ve cut it no matter how useful I might’ve been otherwise.”

Reid props himself against the wall in feigned amusement. “And _what_ , for fuck’s sake, could possibly make me that terrified of someone so…small?”

Sam squares herself at his reclining figure. “You’re scared that even if you do need me out there, I’m unqualified enough to get someone killed.”

Reid bolts up like the wall’s on fire. “And what the fuck do you have to say about that?!”

Sam keeps still despite the spittle landing on her face paint. “I’m scared too.”

He stares at that for a long moment, and then down at her mouth like he’s not sure he heard it.

She forces herself not to move back. “But you do need me. And I’m not the flake you think I am. You can keep wasting time targeting me, but I’m not going to leave you alone in this.”

Reid’s nostrils flare before he turns around and pounds the wall beside them. His shoulders heave until he looks back grimly. “I guess I should be happy about that.”


	4. Isn’t a Game

**Corridor G Level 28, 2236 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

Daniel exits the elevator and has to break into a jog after the lanky Special Forces colonel. Which is annoying because he has a lot of questions. “Where are we going again?”

Colonel Lange smiles. “I just want you to understand something.” He gestures down the hallway toward a large blast door. “One of many new challenges. Think of it as cultural immersion.”

Daniel frowns skeptically at the tan line below the man’s recently-cropped hair before finally catching up with him. “A physical challenge?”

The colonel chuckles. “The vast majority of our work is mental. Fun sports are for guys who aren’t critical enough to carry the full weight of a new interstellar war.” He slaps Daniel on the back hard enough to make him stumble. “Or not qualified enough to know they need to be.” He swipes their access to the blast door. Daniel sets his jaw.

It’s huge inside, and packed with exactly the men Daniel really doesn’t want to join. There must be fifty of them crowded into this missile silo, dressed head-to-toe in black with all sorts of dangerous and heavy looking equipment on them. Some are using it behind complex protective walls, maneuvering through a fake Stargate into the expansive low bunker complex that dominates the room. But most look oddly academic, bunched together around tables of battlefield models and precariously stacked file folders. Virtually all their uniforms are blank.

Daniel steps further into the silo while trying to look invisible. Another dozen guys are throwing each other to the ground far too quietly off to his left. Beyond that are placards for a second bunker and separate shooting range. That’s probably where he’s headed. He’s had to carry a pistol at some dig sites in the past, but he never spent much time on it. Oops.

A few men aren’t wearing the all black combat gear, and their woodland and desert patterns draw Daniel’s eye. In part because they’re clearly the newest arrivals—some still even have their Middle Eastern-style beards—and in part because Daniel is the only one in the room wearing blue fatigues. It’s all they gave him.

Colonel Lange follows Daniel’s gaze with a smile. “Yeah. Nearly half of these guys still have still have dust in their hair from anywhere between Zaire and Argentina. Every one of ‘em pulled right off the plane, or off leave too early. Best not bring it up. We’ll scrounge up some better gear for you.” He claps his hands together. “Right then. I’ve gotta run, but the Gunny here will get you right in.”

“I’m sorry.  _ In _ ?” Daniel’s mouth flaps at the massive bunker complex. “Maybe I should just start on the handgun…” But Lange slaps him on the back again and jogs off. Daniel’s eyes follow forlornly before he realizes he should be following the other guy. Who’s already left. Daniel starts to run after him and lets out a sigh as they at least head to the smaller bunker. He stumbles over his own stiff boots as they stop inside the first security line. “Uh, sir?”

“Call me Gunny. Retired Marine gunnery sergeant.” The man smiles lightly and then jerks back the handle of an assault rifle Daniel somehow missed him picking up. “Doc Langford talked about you some. Whole O’Neill thing was terrible for her, but you she liked. Not bad given how long she stopped recruiting from the ruins and bones crowd. Sorry you got caught up in that.”

“Thanks. I mean, I’m glad I got to be there.” Daniel fidgets as the Marine starts pulling things from the mob of shelves around them.

“Yeah.” The Marine sergeant huffs. “Clueless enough to get picked but lucky enough not to die.” He yanks something else off a shelf and sets it in Daniel’s general vicinity.

Daniel eyes the growing pile warily. “I really don’t think Jack was looking for anyone clueless—”

The Marine slams his hand on a rack. “Guy throws out an entire program of people who  _ built a wormhole stabilizer  _ right before he rips open space-time, and you think he’s looking for experience? You realize thoe kids he brought barely had enough stripes to’ve earned their basic berets? It took Carter and me four years of workup to just get  _ clearance _ for the live program.”

“I didn’t…” Daniel glances at the array of weapons around the angry commando. “I feel like you should really talk to Jack.”

“I don’t converse with seagull colonels who swoop in and take what they want from my boss while they shit on her.” The Marine spins around to jam heavy things into a rucksack. “And I’d talk to the four kids, but he killed them as soon as he went out there without rehearsing how to get back.”

Daniel’s stomach lurches toward his feet. “That…that was really more my fault. I just assumed—”

“Doctor!” The Marine’s face turns Corps red. “Never in my life have I turned out a Marine lieutenant stupid enough to trust a rookie civilian with his team’s extraction plan. Much less who’d accept no remote surveillance but a  _ nuclear bomb _ .” The sergeant finally stops grabbing things for Daniel to carry. “O’Neill knows he screwed up even the obvious crap. Fuck the flyboy generals, shitbird should’ve gotten himself court-martialed when he first had the chance.”

Daniel looks around in vain, though he’s not sure whether he wants someone in hearing distance or not. “I’m sorry you’re upset.”

The former Marine bolts up at him. “You listen to me, Doctor. That man has no business being called a colonel. He’s supposed to have spent twenty years becoming the smartest and most foresighted leader at the head of a thousand commandos, and instead he used it to screw over the organization he got and collapse the galaxy on catastrophically illegal orders. He’s the reason for  _ all _ of this. He’s the reason your wife is gone.” The sergeant growls and nearly knocks Daniel over with a thickly armored vest.

Daniel drops the armor painfully onto his foot. He hadn’t thought of that. Not that he hadn’t thought of Sha’re, just that…Ra was the reason. Everything was so hard last year. He hadn’t thought Jack should know better.

“Your scenario—Dammit, kid, pay attention! Bullets don’t wait.” The sergeant snaps in his face. “You’d get somebody killed ruminating like that. Your clandestine reconnaissance team just faced a surprise chemical explosion in the Goa’uld compound behind you. Suit up.”

Daniel tries to take the vest back haphazardly and then struggles to maintain his balance as the sergeant unceremoniously stuffs him into it. And then another webbed vest, helmet, headset, night vision goggles, knee pads, elbow pads, rucksack, and a waist rig.

The sergeant paces around him while yanking on the occasional strap. “You were separated from your team during the explosion and have just regained consciousness in the armory. Do you have any questions?”

Daniel swallows against his helmet strap but answers firmly. “No, thank you.”

The Marine considers that incredulously for a second. “Yes, Doctor, your current Rules state you  _ may _ kill Jaffa. And yes, you are carrying classified intelligence and equipment.” He shakes his head at the denseness but tries to be helpful. “You’ll also see more gear in the armory, including some captured or knockoff SG materiel. In particular, you’ll remember there was a chemical explosion and want one of these.” He grabs a nearby mask for him in a gesture that borders on helpful.

Daniel fumbles the contraption that he’s evidently supposed to wear on his face. In addition to the night vision goggles, his glasses, the ear pieces, the helmet, and something he’s still not sure of the use of. The sergeant has to redo all his headgear for him, including crudely popping the lenses out of his glasses.

The Marine talks quickly as he finishes. “And yes, you do remember: your mission here was to recon the Goa’uld base that attacked an allied society, which means there may or may not be allied captives present. And no, you don’t know your team’s location, but your first set rally point is three klicks down the river at the north exit. Yes, you’ve retained intel from the mission including a sketch map.” He thrusts the packet forward without pausing. “No, all radio communication is blocked by perimeter jammers. No, this is a fully-equipped but remote Jaffa base not on the current aerospace routes. Yes, there are long-dwell naquadah UAVs overhead, but you’ve missed the SGC check-in and the contingency dial isn’t for another four hours. Enter over there when the light turns green.”

Daniel lumbers forward by the grainy shades of his night vision goggles. The light activates all too soon, but he runs in without rethinking. And promptly falls over himself at the entrance. Wow, that was loud. He gropes forward under the hundred pounds of gear crushing his spine. It’s hard to even lay there, but he manages to breathe quietly through the gas mask. Except he should probably untangle his rifle now.

It almost knocks his night vision goggles clean off. This is a great start.

Sweat mars the papers as Daniel tries to find his map. It looks like an incomplete sketch even if he understood all the symbols on it, but he knows the bunker isn’t as big as it feels. Probably only six hundred square feet. And he’s pretty good with catacombs. There’s even a compass in his vest, so he knows which way north is. And he has a feeling time is graded very heavily in this. He struggles to his feet before deciding to maybe crawl. It seems quieter.

He gets to the northward doorway an eternity later and peeks around the corner to check for movement. He has no idea where guards might be checking or where the explosion was or how it affected them. Probably should’ve asked. But he grits down on the fear and lifts his rifle…only to find an impossibly complicated-looking scope on it. What’s  _ in  _ this rifle anyway?

Daniel leans back and stares at the ceiling. This is not funny. He could really die this way, and if he doesn’t do well he’ll never find Sha’re. He repositions the massive load on his shoulders and checks out the doorway more deliberately. It’s still silent. He waits for far too long before finally convincing himself to stand and run across the hall right now. It works, but it’s so loud. He keeps running to escape the noise and hears other echoes in the background. This is really bad.

Daniel’s pack finally catches on an outcrop and topples him onto his knees. He has to calm down. He’s not thinking.

He has no idea where he is.

His eyes dart desperately across the identical snaking corridors before he fumbles desperately for the map. There has something distinctive here. There has to be a way to fix this. He squints dumbly at the paper before turning it over twice, only to look up and find a silhouette suddenly positioned in the far corridor. He jerks up the rifle and shoots, sending an explosion of bullets in the general direction to a guard who runs and yells.

Daniel doesn’t wait for an answer as he bolts down the nearest intersection. He runs headlong into a huge chunk of collapsed ceiling and suddenly remembers the explosion that happened. He switches the rifle for his pistol and scampers desperately over chunks of concrete. It takes a lifetime to find an exposed doorway as the pounding boots close in. The room he finally finds seems empty until a laser light flashes straight in his eyes. He squeezes the trigger automatically, and something metallic pings at him.  A suddenly siren erupts over the running of boots. Daniel springs up again and tries desperately to run north.

 

* * *

 

Sam leans down behind Sergeant Siler’s desk and nods. “Let’s bump it up on the training schedule then. I’ll push through the budget requirements.” Her gaze moves across the storeroom to the twenty younger men hunched over shabby workbenches. Mechanics, machinists, munitions experts, electricians. Not nearly enough of any for the work they’re facing, and Sam only knows a few names so far. “Anything else for your flight right now?”

Siler turns around to look at them. They seem like nervous kids at a distance, mostly because they are. He’s supposed to shape them right before any real war. That was before they met Teal’c. “A flight commander would be great, ma’am. Maybe even a squadron commander for both of us, if there’s a major feeling really nice.”

Sam smiles. “Sorry about that. I’m sure they’ll sort it out soon. Lieutenant Kersh is the only one in the Gate Room right now.”

Siler cocks his head interestedly. “Maintenance?”

“Untrained.” Sam closes her notes. “Recent Academy grad awaiting pilot screening. He’s in Security Forces for now.”

Siler’s less stoic persona bangs its head against the hyperbolic desk. “And the SG squadron can’t spare any billets? Not one of their  _ fourteen _ senior sergeant and  _ two  _ bird colonel slots, but maybe a lieutenant who knows more about his own laundry and taxes than my freshman son.”

Sam finds a smile. She won’t argue. Taking over your first flight is hard enough; handling it in a shooting war is something else entirely. Supervising twenty junior airmen when you yourself have never lived outside the Academy’s walls rapidly changes you for life. Trust her, she remembers. “I’m here. And I promise no one’s going to suffer under the delusion that any random kid can do what you need to.”

Siler nods too slowly. “Then what happens when we do do something wrong?”

“Specifically?” Sam finds herself tensing next to him.

He looks back with something that’s trying very hard to be humor. “You mean besides how we have no idea what we’re doing?”

She tries to laugh. “Yes, other than that.” It’s not funny.

He shakes his head. “That’s about the shape of it, ma’am. Leadership issues aside, I’ve never run a shop where all the equipment is revolutionary and still being redesigned, only a few dozen techniques are even  _ written _ , all the leads including me are underqualified, our median age is barely twenty-two, and we’re the only transport, communication, reconnaissance, resupply, and artillery link for a half dozen special operations missions being run on different planets. At the same time, through a single convoluted doorway, for an interstellar conflict brought on by the assassination of a ten-thousand-year-old superpower.” He looks back at his kids across the bay. “We’re about to write a lot of things in blood we should’ve written in sweat, ma’am.”

Sam forces the belated breath out of her lungs. “We won’t pen it cheaply.”

Siler just nods, and Sam lets him go back to his men. She leaves as well, too busy to dwell. Her meeting with ‘Walter’ hadn’t been quite so dark, but all told she’s had a lucky half hour. Both men are exceedingly sharp leaders, if over-cognizant of their messes and novice subordinates. She heads back to the training bay and deliberates how to convince Captain Reid that a having clueless rookie near an active Stargate is more dangerous than shaving a few years off his average commando’s age.

Most guys are bunched around planning tables when Sam swipes back into the training bay. Her old 2IC isn’t with them though, and Sam jogs toward his spot at the annex bunker before fully processing how agitated he looks. “Something wrong, Gunny?”

The gunnery sergeant spins around at her voice. “He’s destroying my house!”

Sam lays a hand on his shoulder automatically while viewing the monitors. Daniel is back in Room Three. “I know you have work to do, Chris. You didn’t have to send him back through again.”

“I  _ didn’t _ .” The retired Marine tries to share his sense of distress.

Sam glances at her wristwatch. “You mean he’s been in there for  _ half an hour _ ?”

“Forty minutes.” The gunny scowls. “He has no idea how dead he is. I don’t think he  _ can _ get out. And he’s gonna run out of ammo pretty soon—he’s  _ still _ shooting everything that starts toward him.  _ Thirty-eight _ civilians so far!” He brandishes his notepad angrily.

Sam pushes down the hand and tries to quell her friend. “Did he miss the map-compass error?”

“He didn’t even  _ think _ to test any of our other-planet crap!” It comes with an eye roll that she’s not supposed to see. “Asked exactly zero questions, didn’t memorize his intel, didn’t adapt his gear, didn’t question the SOPs, didn’t try to figure _ anything _ out; his only initiative is in shooting crap!” The commando waves at his handmade bunker distraughtly. “I never should’ve let you talk me into this; this is why we don’t let non-infantry on our ranges!”

Sam stays beside him and reaches over to zoom in a camera. Daniel has mostly given up now, slumped against the floor and pinned down by oppressive smoke and training rounds. “You know we’re going to have to work with this, Chris. I’m non-infantry, too.”

He huffs loudly. “You’re better than half the corporals I’ve taught. I don’t want you anywhere near this guy. You know he’s destroyed every potentially useful piece of technology in there? And not just the fake stuff; he knocked out two of my cameras. You gotta let me stop this thing.”

Sam looks him over quickly. “Denied. I’ll get him.” This isn’t a game, and she won’t have the first lesson Daniel learns be that someone needs to shut it off.

Her 2IC stews impatiently for the minute it takes her to suit up again, but he sets her up to enter the shoothouse without arguing.


	5. Do Your Job

**Urban Training Annex Bunker, 2322 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

In truth, Sam Carter is not the person you want coming to rescue you in a tactical shoothouse, even one dumbed down for non-commandos. She knows this of course; there are guys incredibly well trained for it. One is waiting very impatiently outside. But fortunately for Daniel, she’s run this bunker in roughly this setup five times in the last two hours, and the doctor isn’t moving. Sam navigates to him readily enough, curled against the same wall and being riddled by yet more marking rounds. Sam motions to get his attention before rushing the gap and taking a pellet to the kneepad. And then three point-blank kills to the chest.

Sam knocks his barrel away, sending Daniel’s next rounds into the concrete. Her vision blackens as her dominant arm screams. The shots just missed her armor plate.

“Som?” Daniel mumbles through his gas mask. “OhmGod I’msosorry.”

Sam grabs him by the vest without trying to speak for herself. She switches her rifle arm and forces the other one to drag his tangled form into the hall. It proves impossible to herd him around the suppressive fire, and she just breaches the closest doorway out. That puts them on top of a guard post manned by two very bored looking Security Forces airmen. Both boys proceed to blink confusedly as Sam kills one with a training knife. The other shoots her point blank under the shoulder. Again.

Sam falls hard on the concrete and rolls toward the security perimeter.

Her 2IC triggers the range safeties and runs up with a medic. “Sam! Are you okay?”

Sam pulls off her mask and sucks in more air with a nod.

Daniel sinks down to the floor in exhaustion. “Thonks. Im…” He sighs and stops struggling with his mask.

Sam pushes off the floor as fast as humanly possible and jogs over to him. “You okay?” She reaches down and turns on his mask’s voice emitter.

Daniel looks up sheepishly but doesn’t say anything as she unclips all his headgear and yanks him to his feet. His shoulders rise at least a foot as she pulls him from the loaded rucksack and paint-stained armor. “Um. So…what’d I get, Gunny?”

The gunnery sergeant’s brow creases at his clipboard. “Seventy-two.”

Daniel looks up sharply. “Oh. That’s—”

“Out of five hundred.” The Marine stares back flatly.

“Oh.” Daniel exhales. “Okay then.”

The commando closes in on him. “And there’s no spot on my scoresheet for ‘murdered rescuer point-blank in chest three times’. You ever do that to my boss with real bullets and I will  _ put you in the ground _ , Doctor _. _ ”

Daniel gulps. “Right. I wouldn’t, I’ll be more…I’m sorry about that.” He glances around, but Sam is now off with the medic. He winces.

“You learn anything else?”

Daniel looks back and swallows again. His throat is still dry. “Um, I…learned I can’t do that?”

Apparently that’s the wrong answer, because it pushes another button on the retired Marine. “Doctor. Can you pilot an F-16?”

Daniel blinks at the severe tone. “No, but I’m not sure what that—”

“No, because it has nothing to do with being an archeologist.” The commando huffs in frustration. “It also has nothing to do with being a Force Reconnaissance platoon sergeant. But I don’t need  _ forty-five minutes _ in an F-16 cockpit to convince me that I don’t have a shit clue what I’m doing.”

Daniel backs up slightly. “Right, sorry. I’m sorry.” He looks around for a better answer.

Evidently he takes too long. “Doctor, the point of this exercise was to expose you to one split-second problem our teams will face off-world. To get you thinking about how to  _ help  _ us. This is the  _ basic  _ stuff.” The Marine pivots back to his monitoring station.

Daniel trails behind him painfully, worried they’re about to rewatch his tape.

The sergeant pulls up someone else’s instead. He’s back to merely sounding emphatic, though he can’t fully mask the exasperation. “I call what you just tried a three-minute drill. I trust you can guess why.”

Daniel shifts uncomfortably and gauges if he can sit down with all the paint on his butt.

The sergeant hits play on somebody’s tape. “It’s a quick, building-block check designed to get us thinking nonlinearly and looking for little cues that could become big problems on real missions. We already have thirty scenarios worked up for this bunker alone. Any SG member needs to train several hundred into  _ instinctualized _ good judgment. There’re plenty of complex problems in combat to take up everyone’s real thought.” He points to a monitor, which Daniel is having trouble deciphering because of the smoke. “I required every Marine here to finish this in under two minutes. Do you know how much ammo they all expended in the process? Take a guess.”

Daniel tries to remember all the magazines he fumbled with in that chaos. “Maybe a few hundred?”

“ _ Zero _ , Doctor.” The gunny accents his number with the thud. “Because whether you believe it or not, they’re damn smart men who find smart ways to do their jobs. Their job when a  _ clandestine reconnaissance  _ mission gets blown is to regroup invisibly, not kill every noncombatant in the building twice. Do you have any idea long it takes to perfect and maintain how  _ not  _ to kill someone, especially when they’re right damn on top of you?”

Daniel is still trying to figure out who possibly wasn’t shooting at him in there. “I killed a civilian?”

“You _ massacred _ every prisoner who came to you, Doctor. I’d’ve been better off calling a damn flyboy in to bomb the thing.” The Marine lets off the rest of his steam and deflates into his notes. “Just…go get dinner or something. Thank the supply guys for hauling it in here.”

Daniel turns vaguely toward the food spread he still doesn’t notice. He’d just killed people. Good people, in a Goa’uld compound. Without knowing it. He reaches out blindly and bumps into the sergeant. The man continues to resolutely ignore him. Daniel looks down and tries to blink back control of his tear ducts. “Thank you. I…I needed to know that.” His gaze drops to the stains on his hands.

Daniel had accepted on the spot that he could easily die finding Sha’re, and he’d even wondered about naively endangering someone willing to help him. But he hadn’t considered how easy it is to mistakenly hurt someone else. The wrong someone else. And even after all that, he’d shot the person who’d come to rescue him too.

Daniel feels his food tray get heavier before turning to the gaggle of planning tables and mostly unmarked uniforms and hard jaws. Sam should be easy to spot from here, but she’s still missing. That medic must be very over-cautious. She’s probably really annoyed.

It’s not like he actually killed her.

“Heya there, Doc!” Someone pounds Daniel’s shoulder so hard it splashes his coffee. “So what’d ya score?”

Daniel cranes awkwardly to find the captain that he’d rapidly learned to dislike at the initial briefing. “Um, seventy-something.”

The soldier cackles. “Wow, new record.” He spins Daniel around to point at someone behind them. “You know you got basically the same score as that guy over there. Well, he got a hundred and seventy, but same difference when passing is four fifty, right? You should ask Sammy to introduce you two. You’re definitely on his team.”

Daniel follows the gesture to where Sam has indeed reappeared and is talking animatedly to someone. He sighs in relief. “Thanks.” Daniel tries to shrug the hand off his shoulder.

“Always welcome. We love guys who think they can do our jobs better than we can.” The soldier smirks while raising his voice enough to draw a few looks. “This isn’t the movies anymore, Doc.”

Daniel tries again to pull out of the grasp. “You know there’s a lot more to working off-world than just that one test.”

_ “Damn, you mean there’s more than just some simple crap? Fuck, years leading guys in indigenous villages and I had no idea. Please tell me how you’re better versed at supporting war-torn countrysides than my fifteen-year Special Forces sergeants.”  _ Reid raises his voice enough to stop the conversation at every table around them.  _ “Because these guys need to shoehorn in an academic the way an archaeologist needs a goddamn tour guide.” _

The crowd buzzes at that, not the least because Reid switches from Russian to German in the middle. Daniel slips into the latter but fumbles the accent.  _ “I’m just saying I think we need everyone’s skills.” _

Reid pushes past him.  _ “Then perfect something more useful than nuking entire motherships’ worth of slaves and fucking alien princesses.” _

“Captain Reid!” Sam stops letting Daniel handle it and materializes sharply between the two men. “Haben wir Problem?”

Reid elbows past her with a snort and starts griping to someone in Russian.

Daniel looks Sam up and down, mostly surprised until he remembers her bandaged chest. “Bist du verletzt?”

“It won’t hurt if you let me speak English.” Sam favors her injured side and moves Daniel farther from their audience. “Sorry about that; I’m handling him. Team leads are naturally…protective…against amateurs.”

Daniel glances back at the soldier. “Est un crétin.”

“That too.” She winces as she tries to grin. “But I should warn you no one goes into special ops because they’re bad with languages.” She stops them in front of the officer she’d been talking to.

“Really don’t sweat it, Doctor. Personally that bunker kicked my tail too.” The elder man toasts his glass at Daniel. “In fact, Captain Carter was just educating me what I did and didn’t learn inside with regard to our research priorities. How’m I doing, Captain?”

Sam fidgets slightly at the publicity. “All great points, sir, but still given our current staffing and tactical case, my first emphasis is still on dormant communication systems.”

The officer follows as they weave between tables stacked with field manuals and fake meatloaf. “Guess I should just let you do your job, huh?”

Daniel cranes toward him curiously. The man is a colonel, Daniel’s pretty sure, though he can’t really distinguish the two oak leaves yet or any of those darn chest badges. “You’re a scientist too?”

“Pilot.” The colonel zooms his hand through a combat roll. “Guess I see UAV capabilities everywhere now. Not that there aren’t plenty to handle down here. How about you? There must be a lot of interest in your linguistics, judging by all the time I’ve spent flying overwatch for these guys in mud hut villages.”

“We’ll all need a lot of new language work for sure, particularly if we want vernacular viewpoints.” Daniel glances around at the snatches of Arabic, Czech, Bahasa, Turkish, and Mandarin emanating for the tables near them. “But I haven’t found much interest in me yet.”

The colonel grunts as they find a place to stand amid the scrum. “Ah, well, at least you’re in good company. We’ll have a whole lot of ‘fitting in’ to facilitate around here. Just keep an open mind and I’m sure you’ll win them over.”

“I guess I should find out where to fit.” Daniel pauses for a moment to study someone’s Dari accent. It’s incredible. “Say, are you really on my team? Captain Reid says our scores from that bunker placed us together.”

The colonel cocks his head in masked tension. “Well, Doctor, I don’t think the captain meant an SG team.”

Sam blushes bright red as Daniel looks to her quizzically. “Daniel, the colonel is…we didn’t name them fighter pilots because they know how to fight.”

Laughter erupts from the tables around her over what seems to be far too large a hearing radius. Sam schools her face and tries very hard to turn retroactively mute.

The colonel slaps her on the back instead. “Laugh, Captain; that’s good!” He continues to even when she doesn’t. “I know it’s overwhelming, Doctor, but personally I don’t belong anywhere an A-10 can’t fit. Unless it’s here, establishing the most complicated airbase in human history. Under a ten-thousand-foot mountain. Through a wormhole.”

Captain Reid takes that opportunity to pipe up from the lingering laughter. “Good thing real airmen know what they’re best at after an entire career doing it, huh, sir?”

The colonel turns on him easily. “Soldier, if you made me put on infantry boots right now and become _telepathic_ , I still would not qualify to join you boys before retirement. Which is why we’re all very lucky that you don’t desperately need me to!” He smiles sharply.

Reid’s grin drops off, but he holds his tongue.

The colonel fixes his smile for the rest of the audience they’ve somehow amassed. “I’m afraid I need to slink back to the dark side, folks, but I look forward to cooperating with you all soon. And Doctor, don’t be afraid to ask questions of these fine people. In fact I bet someone can get you an introduction to a school nearby that specializes in training civilians. I’ve never been, and it’s not much for ground combat or special ops representation, but you might like it.”

Reid smiles chummily. “We’ll get right on that, sir. No better place than the Academy to become a stuck-up sycophant who can’t hack it on ground level.” He casts a sardonic glance at Carter.

Sam tries and fails to pass that straight-face test, not that they wouldn’t’ve all assumed she politicked her way in here regardless. “I still have some Academy contacts from when I was slated to teach, Colonel. I’ll call in the morning.”

“Great. G’night, folks.” He directs his nod at the crowd but pounds Carter’s shoulder. “Noses on target.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I happen to know the real then-captain lecturing on this subject at USAFA in 1997. Daniel had a good teacher.


	6. Perhaps They Will Be Faster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teal’c does not auto-magically speak English in this series.

**Antechamber to the Central War Room, 2231 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

Teal’c retakes his seat within the Tau’ri military’s new Stargate Command and resumes writing. It is a comfortable chair in the literal sense, one of several contoured and padded contraptions that is sufficiently tall without appearing truly regal. Yet by figurative meaning it is exceedingly discomfiting. Teal’c is not allowed in the main War Room, of course, but he does not take this decision personally. He sits at a desk in its antechamber, fully equipped with all manner of Earth devices including an armed Tau’ri human. Teal’c does not take this personally either, particularly after their infirmary’s more literally restrictive accommodations. O’Neill, or perhaps Hammond, released him from that facility, and O’Neill still emerges here regularly to mime him questions.

And yet that is the discomfiting part. Teal’c understands the fates have dictated he save the warrior who killed Ra above Abydos. And O’Neill is clearly that type of man, one with a leading edge called decisive, but a trailing blade surely named foolishness. Both are quite sharp compared to Teal’c’s society of long lives and longer judgments. But a warrior can always choose the end with which he strikes.

Teal’c has thus far been underwhelmed by the man’s judgment.

Provoking and destroying Ra’s central fleet was a bizarre blow to Apophis’s War Room. Albeit not as foolish as it must now look among the Tau’ri, but the decision has offered favor to very few. No god reigns for ten thousand years simply for lack of ways to kill him. Teal’c himself has ruled against any number of assassinations, for Goa’uld are political animals, and assassination is a peculiar tool. Sans the aims of bloodlust and anarchy, System Lords profited far more from scheming in Ra’s shadows than struggling in this chaos. In that sense at least, O’Neill has cut both his people and the Goa’uld with his brashness. Now they all play with untempered fire and death rather than the breadth of proxy wars and politics.

Teal’c sharpens his ‘pencil’ once more. He will do what he can.

O’Neill emerges from the meeting of senior leaders soon after that moment. The younger man wears a characteristic look of determination and tunneled blindness that Teal’c has come to associate with internalized guilt. The Tau’ri’s face bears a severe question though, and Teal’c has long been expecting as much. He and O’Neill do not share a common language in the lexical sense, but they have not yet needed it.

“Do you know why Apophis came here?”

It is a simple interrogative, by length and word enunciation. Simple enough likely to allow for Daniel Jackson’s translation, and yet O’Neill does not call him. There is only one such simple question at the intersection of Apophis and Daniel Jackson, but O’Neill offers a sketch of Earth’s address anyway. Teal’c frowns, which is answer enough between them. He truly does not know, though he knew the information was strong enough to prompt Apophis’s personal involvement. In all likelihood it did indeed stem from an Abydonian informant, but his staff is not at all limited in their means of espionage. As O’Neill must have finally admitted, it does not matter. Earth could not leave the risk to fester. It is once more a discomfiting level of ignorance from a man with whom Teal’c naturally aligned. And it is not a trait the general understands.

O’Neill turns to reenter his War Room. Though perhaps he ought not.

Teal’c dismisses the thoughts over which he has no control and refocuses on the task before him. He has already stacked this desk high with sketches and notes, in Goa’uld rather than Abydonian. Some will have to be translated and then translated again by Daniel Jackson, but most either will not or cannot be. In truth, Teal’c and Daniel Jackson do not share a common tongue either, at least not for the purposes of military intelligence and strategy.

This fact has been loudly frustrating to the commanders of the War Room. It has also been frustrating to Teal’c.

It is frustrating in part because Teal’c has far more to tell than he is yet able…and likely yet should. Earth is very young in far too many ways, though his immediate concern stems from O’Neill and Daniel Jackson. To the former, because he is indecipherable. Or perhaps it is Teal’c’s attachment to O’Neill that is. The Tau’ri has proven himself a fool at least twice now, and Master Teal’c of Chulak does not typically suffer fools. But perhaps this First Prime still has a soft spot for young commanders with far more courage and compassion than training and competence. Teal’c has known several such youths in his time: good men, but unqualified officers. Most end up dead after causing far too much needless loss. Teal’c ought to be more careful now, or he ought to understand better. If this case is typical, he ought to do both.

Daniel Jackson is different. There is no love lost between Teal’c and the former Abydonian, though the civilian has repeatedly appeared here in attempts to divine latent information. He is not very skilled at it. And though Teal’c’s life has burdened him with no scarcity of guilt, he sees no reason for Daniel Jackson’s loss to be held of particular note. Each Tau’ri will either accept Teal’c as he is, or he will not. The former First Prime has doomed far more innocents to far worse fates than two remnants of Daniel Jackson’s relatives now face. The Tau’ri army also appears alarmed by such wanton nepotism in wartime. That at least is ubiquitous. The Tau’ri army is young, but they are not naïve about complex wars—an advantage they hold over smaller human colonies.

And there are not many such advantages. The Tau’ri, individually, are also very young, and Teal’c’s observation of O’Neill worries him. One of the gravest differences between a novice commander and a wise one is how selflessly he serves those he leads. Teal’c himself, though not old by Jaffa standards, has seen far too many such arrogant youth. Officers who jump to adventure without thought for their inexperience. Sharp men, some, but ignorant or merely egotistical enough to leverage such few achievements into challenges others are far more qualified to face.

Such egotism destroys units, as O’Neill’s Project Giza no doubt understands. Daniel Jackson’s naïve pursuit of his wife could well do the same. Certainly Teal’c of all people knows far too well that a warrior cannot hold his family paramount when dedicating his life to his whole people. And as a general, Teal’c does not permit such discord to fester in his ranks. It may not be his place in Tau’ri culture to say as much, but he is a general and the soldiers here will have his mind as well as his staff.

Truth be spoken, Teal’c does feel some deep connection to this military. Perhaps for its potential; perhaps because he has no other chance. But of course he does not expect the Tau’ri to assist directly in the Jaffa cause. Earth is far too young yet to decipher the strategic implications of a Rebellion for them, though at least they now understand as much. And yet Teal’c needs them—Earth is likely the last untouched refuge of knowledge in the galaxy, though that offers weakness as much as strength. Indeed more, for they now immediately face a war far beyond their broadest imagining. A war for which neither side is prepared, but at least the Goa’uld are old in the galaxy and wise to adapt to it. Earth is far too young to have begun such a war with the gods. But perhaps they will be faster.

Or perhaps they will not.

Of course, Teal’c should not speak so quickly, for his own fate holds similar terms. In many ways the Jaffa would be as naïve as the Tau’ri when severed from their Goa’uld institutions. Teal’c reaffirms as much even as he writes the reports upon this desk. The Goa’uld monopoly serves as a knowledgebase as much as a stranglehold, a fact with which he has spent many long nights struggling. He is destined now to spend many more. In a galaxy full of enemies, the System Lords are no fools to perennially dominate. And theirs is a resiliency cultivated in ten millennia of trial and competition with Jaffa blood.

And yet here Teal’c sits, seeking to do something no one has ever achieved in this galaxy of warlords. For his faction seeks not just a revolution but a unification. A unification spread across billions of warriors who have slaughtered each other for thousands of years. And that now, by the hand of a man Teal’c must call a comrade, face a last Great War. The largest and most devastating by far since the rise of Ra and creation of Jaffa. A war that centers here, on the surprised and ill-prepared younglings with whom Teal’c must stand. A war that will be fed by the deaths of still millions more Jaffa by each other’s staffs. A war that will take great ingenuity to turn into a revolution.

And yet if that is the case, Teal’c is glad he is here.


	7. Risk You Wisely

**Main Provisional Training Bay, 2339 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

Daniel tries not to feel like a lost dog as he trails Sam through the sea of tables. But she always seems like she knows what she’s doing, and he’s trying to catch the snatches of conversation. Dari, Hungarian, Tagalog, Persian, then Korean, Polish, Urdu. Most people sound rusty and Americanized, but it’s real colloquial stuff. He’s already heard two jokes about how many airmen it takes to screw in light bulbs around here. Plus—if Daniel’s not oversensitive—some subtle notes about Jack and astoundingly unsubtle ones on Sam. And plenty at himself, of course, but that’s to be expected.

Sam finally stops them at a table, and the man at its head slips from Pashto into English. “Evenin’, Captain. I assume this is the infamous Jackson?”

Daniel grins nervously. “Ah, I hope not.”

“Oh, I’ve got nothing against you, Doctor.” The weathered rock of a warrior turns to him as his team stays bent over tactical diagrams. “You seem like a selfless enough guy, butting in aside. My problem is I run a battalion of professionals, and if you ever blindly  _ ask _ for your dreams over their right to breathe again—based on anything you ever do or anything you’ve ever done—you will never do anything worthwhile again.”

Daniel retracts from trying to set his tray down. “Um, I’m sorry. I’m really just trying to help. I’m not a soldier, but I am a professional anthropologist.”

“This isn’t about being a  _ soldier _ , Doctor.” The commando discards his notes and closes in on him fully. “There are over two hundred different types of soldier, and ninety-five percent aren’t commandos. Contrary to popular belief, you have to be expert  _ at special ops  _ in order to be an expert at special ops.” The rock’s hand settles comfortably onto his knife hilt. “Personally, I’ve been doing this across the corners of the Earth for  _ your entire lifetime.  _ So I need an  _ exceedingly good reason  _ to think you’ll provide something uniquely worthwhile. Make sense?”

Daniel feels his posture straighten automatically. “Of course, sir.”

The speaker isn’t the only one who snorts. “Doctor Jackson, my name is  _ Command Sergeant Major _ . ‘Sir’ is what my men call youngins who train longer than any other officer in the military just to  _ watch  _ us work.” It catches a looks from the nearby captains, both of whom just smirk. “And the last person of any rank to earn my respect for his diplomacy did so by outwitting a traitor, saving his base, and getting twelve Rangers  _ smile _ as they met with the immediate family of the man who just  _ blew off their combat medic’s head _ while his blood was still soaking through their uniforms.”

“I…I would never take a position someone else should fill.” Daniel slides toward Sam as he tries to figure out how he got into this and how to get her to get him out of it.

The rock’s hand stays casually on his knife. “Doctor, do you know why every clueless frat boy lieutenant outranks me and all my men? The sergeants in this room have  _ seven hundred years  _ of professional village diplomacy, surgical strikes, covert observation. Every officer takes years to join in. So are those green non-grunts somehow still smarter? Braver? More honorable? Stronger leaders?”

Sam snorts loudly, though Daniel already deduced the answer to that one. She answers for him anyway by rote.  “So that we stay the hell out of your way, Sergeant Major.” She doesn’t curse by preference, but she’ll deliver that line the way she learned it.

The rock snaps to her sharply. “And where’d you learn that one, Captain? Drinkin’ in your undergrad?”

“Fifty feet over the Euphrates, Sergeant Major.” Sam feels her smile falter.

His eyebrows pop just enough to notice. “Funny, I learned it lookin’ up from the A Shau. Up at another Air Force officer, actually. After he got a Silver Star up there killing our bad guys.” The rock reflects internally for a second and then drops his hand from his knife hilt. “He came back again, still, when the VC overran the camp. And some other pilot got shot down right into it.”

Everyone else stops pretending they’re not listening.

The rock pulls Daniel dangerously close to him. “But does this guy just fly around and protect him like any sane person? Or does he dump the problem on us or get in our way?” The rock locks a vice grip on his shoulder. “No. Sonofabitch  _ lands  _ on the battlefield airstrip, taxis through the ground fire and crater holes, climbs out in the goddamn open! Saves the guy.”

Daniel’s knee wobbles under the continued force.

“And  _ then _ does this guy call himself crashed, down there with a shot-up plane on the ground near American commandos?” He laughs. “No. Damn fool decides to put that deathtrap  _ back _ in the air. Loads up the crashed guy, taxis  _ back  _ across our battlefield, takes off, starts covering our asses all over again. ‘Nam was a suck of a war, but fuck I do miss guys like that. We don’t get enough air action anymore to build up those guys. So hardened they’ll do anything in an airplane—‘cept get out of it when it’s not sitting on an airstrip!” He laughs at his own witticism and keeps his grip on the civilian.

“That’s incredible.” Daniel nods in awe. Five seconds later he feels himself stop hard against the nearest wall. There’s still that iron hand still clamped over his clavicle. The move didn’t hurt or anything, Daniel’s just not sure how it happened. He tries to smile and relaxes a little as Sam follows them over.

“ _ A lot  _ of things are incredible, Doctor.” The rock hits him with a lecturing finger. “Victory requires far too many incredible and dangerous heroes. But the deliberate, informed decision to give up your life,  _ and _ get back in your job when Hell spits you back out?  _ That’ _ _s_ Medal of Honor. And that’s my problem with you, Doctor. You go chasing Jaffa around where you don’t belong, and someday someone’s gonna have to do something that nuts for you. We’ll do it; any of my men would for a downed pilot or a stupid rookie or anyone else, but you’re the one that tells their wife and kids. You’re valuable, Doctor, but you’re not alone. We have to risk you wisely.”

Daniel looks past his numbed right arm at the scrum of men debating in foreign languages and hashing out war plans. “I promise I won’t be in the way.”

The rock nods sharply and releases his grip. “That’s a start.” He takes a step back toward Daniel’s erstwhile bodyguard. “So, Captain. How ‘bout your Euphrates story?”

Daniel rolls his shoulder again and starts walking back. Until he plows headlong into Sam’s motionless shoulder blades. It takes him a second blinking at them before realizing. “He wasn’t just talking to me, was he?”

Sam snaps out of it and breaks into a run. This is very bad. “Sergeant Major.”

The soldier stops just short of his staff table. “Thought we were going back there.”

Sam skids to a halt and tries to drop her voice calmly below the polyglot din. “It sounds like we should talk elsewhere about this.”

The rock studies her for a painfully drawn-out beat. “Okay.” He turns to the door.

Sam walks alongside, grateful not to force it. A general wouldn’t want to do that. She drags closed the rusted closet-cum-office door and finally stops rehearsing lines in her head. “I’m not sure what you’ve heard about this, Sergeant Major, but I’m here because our mission needs me to do my job.” She stops to study him fruitlessly. “Yes, I’ve been in this position before, and no, I didn’t leverage my way in or ask a favor. Any choice I ever get goes to my unit. If someone’s telling you differently, they’re lying.”

The rock crosses his arms to lounge against the rickety desk. “Good to know.”

Sam pauses a beat longer than she should. “I’d thank you to not lay your concerns on civilian proxies. I’m very familiar with these kinds of doubts, and I handle them directly. I know I get put where I’m needed, not where I’m wanted.”

The sergeant tilts his head dispassionately. “I meant exactly what I said to Jackson.”

“I’m no more eager to go places I’m not worth the risk than you are.” Sam’s starting to get how Daniel felt a minute ago. “And I’m no less willing to put myself at risk in useful situations. I do know I’m still underqualified for this. I also know everyone on Earth is, and that doesn’t make your people or those I trained for four years any less necessary. I’d thank you not to judge any isolated incident from even further in the past.”

The weathered sergeant watches her with an arched brow. “Captain, all due respect, all you  _ have  _ is a couple months of an isolated incident from back then. I get that was your only shot in real shit, but every guy in that room has triple the work in elite urban hostage ops than you have in ground combat period. It’s my job to worry about that.”

“I understand completely, Sergeant Major.” Sam feels her spine tighten. “But I was in fact needed that night, and just because I was there doesn’t mean I did something wrong. I worked dozens of hours on non-permissive missions before that last flight, not to mention all the special marksmanship, land navigation, lifesaving, combatives, survival, and endurance training it required. Whoever you talked to is skewing history.”

The sergeant pushes himself upright incredulously. “Oh, you know you did  _ something  _ wrong.”

Sam unclamps her jaw enough to answer him. “Just because I know what it’s like to hit the ground with bullets cracking past my ears or kick into training when someone’s dying next to me doesn’t mean it’s my fault. Anymore than you knowing it means it was ever yours. Tell me you don’t like my risk profile on a mission set, but don’t question my reasons for being there if something happens again. And don’t question now that I put our mission and our people above anything I could want. I’m not pushing in here for myself. I’m doing it because  _ you  _ need it for them.”

The rock cocks his head a little too theatrically. “I never said it was your _fault_.” He scoffs humoredly. “You’re never gonna meet someone who does everything right in their first helo shoot-down, Captain. Especially not some amateur lieutenant flight engineer.”

Sam feels her mouth flap before she can stop it. “Then…what’s this all about?”

The rock decides he can chuckle at her. “ _ You  _ brought up the Euphrates assignment, ma’am. I figured you wanted these guys to know you’re not another stuck-winger with a thirty-thousand-foot view and no clue of their shit.” He’s also now grinning blatantly.

Sam manages to stop her jaw before it flaps again. “Then, thank you. But I’ve found it’s better to let my actions speak before my limited history on that point.”

The sergeant shrugs. “Sure. Just know I never become an easier act to follow on war stories.” He hops off the desk.

She blinks dumbly after him. “Sergeant Major?”

“Yes’m.” He turns back to her, still not having yet removed the laugh from his face.

“Why’ve you decided to help me here?” Sam lets her brow crease curiously. “With the mission rehearsal, the dinner meeting, this.”

The rock shakes his head at her. “I’m not, ma’am.” He lobs a fist at the doorframe as they walk back to his men. “I’m doing it for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Colonel Bernard Fisher’s Medal of Honor story.


	8. Going to Be Difficult

**Stargate Command Central War Room, 2346 Hours on 13 February 1997 (Day 2 of the SGC):**

Jack plops down at his desk and squints tiredly at the planning board looming above him. It’s still too small. Everyone is refusing to scale up as quickly as they need to against Apophis. Makepeace still doesn’t even believe it  _ is  _ a war, and everyone else has started giving the two senior ground commanders a wide berth. Hammond is all the way in D.C., though no doubt he’s rapidly losing patience. Plus Jack can read the rest of them anyway; he knows the whole damn base trusts him far less than they want to kick him.

He can’t really fault that.

But right now he needs to get his goddamn act together. This is all standard Red Teaming stuff, and for some reason he can’t write a coherent position paper on it to save his life. He’s being worse than useless. Earth cannot plunge into an interstellar colonial war using a force allocation designed to rescue a single hostage.

He can still fix this.

Jack scrubs his hands down his face and stares at his open Operational Approach memo. He gets it; the evidence on Apophis is slim. But they’ve readied for far less catastrophic situations on less.

Granted, those challenges generally didn’t require creating an entirely new career branch and potentially the upending the federal budget and the geopolitical world order. Jack jerks his keyboard forward and pecks in a line about how the U.S. Army had exactly fifty-four airplanes at the beginning of World War I.  He should be so lucky.

At the same time, he knows Apophis isn’t the only fish to fry. If he was still doing his own goddamn job, Jack would be commanding a Group with seven hundred guys working across five continents. And the SGC isn’t ready to cram tons of manpower down here anyway. And he really can’t afford to overstretch the Joint Chiefs’ support right now. Not that ‘support’ is the right word. But it turns out they react real strongly to being told their services have now experienced the most hostile fire deaths since Somalia, and half of them happened at the bottom of a top secret nuclear bunker in central Colorado. Jack really cannot afford to wreck that relationship further.

And maybe he is overreacting about this whole thing. Not the galactic war; that’s pretty set. It’s hard to overstate collapsing the original superpower of a galactic slave empire such that his heir apparent now has to fight the largest war over it in the history of the known universe. Jack gets that part. Now. It’s a great big galaxy; don’t nuke buttons you don’t understand.  Won’t happen again.

But maybe his Earth situation isn’t so bad. Maybe Jack didn’t somehow mistakenly leak the location of his home planet into a galaxy that’s been seeking fruitlessly to plunder and enslave it for millennia.  Because certainly if he did, that would’ve finished every last thing it’s possible to fuck up in two goddamn weeks.

So maybe it’s not as bad as Jack thinks. Maybe he’s just tense. He does that sometimes. Really. It’s altogether possible that instead of also personally dooming his entire planet, he just killed his own son, started an interstellar war, killed four twenty-somethings stranded a planet they weren’t even supposed to stay on, killed four more unprepared junior airmen, lost another, decimated his own decades-long reputation as a loyal commander, and cut apart a fifteen-year organization that meticulously developed and then proved to the Pentagon it could safely stabilize traversable wormholes.  Other people could’ve screwed that stuff up.

Jack really does need to talk to them though. He has to make an appearance down there, even if it does end with him being tarred and feathered. Giza would certainly love that, though he’s not totally clear where these new guys stand. Jack would ask his own team about it, but he got most of them killed last year two million lifetimes away from their parents and girlfriends.

The colonel turns to stare blankly at the nearest schematic of foreign internal defense doctrine and tells himself yet again that he’s supposed to be fixing this.

The intercom on his desk buzzes gratingly.

“It’s D.C. on the line, Colonel. General Hammond for you immediately.”

Jack pinches his eyebrows and picks up the receiver. He’s really not the right guy to be doing this.

 

* * *

 

Daniel looks forlornly at Sam’s departing figure and then around the scrum before settling back on his abandoned food tray. He has to go back there, and he does, poking at his meatloaf and sliding over to hear a debate about ‘crisis spirals’ in decent Pashto accents. Daniel sips his coffee and tries to find something worth contributing.  _ “You know, that’s interesting because…” _

The guy closest to him barely spares a glance before taking a combat earplug from around his neck and jamming it in his ear.

_ “That’s very classy there, Frank.”  _ Someone jostles the man from behind and then steps in to offer Daniel his hand.  _ “Hey. Name’s Roy. What’re you doing here?” _

_ “Hi, my name’s Daniel.”  _ Daniel shakes the hand with undue surprise.  _ “I’m the paleolinguist who lived on Abydos for a year restabilizing it without their oppressive fake god Ra.” _

The larger man smiles amusedly.  _ “Actually I meant why’re you standing in my spot, but I guess that’s a start. What’re you looking to do?” _

_ “Oh.”  _ Daniel slides awkwardly toward the other nearest dangerous-looking guy.  _ “Um, sorry; the Command Sergeant Major invited me. Well actually he invited Sam—Captain Carter—but I came. Not to be in the way, just that I have experience working with different cultures. I’m trying to help.” _

Roy braces back over his notepad with a grin.  _ “You know we’ve actually got the different cultures thing down historically. It’s more the wormhole bit we’re struggling with.” _

_ “Oh, right.” _ Daniel finds himself gesturing nervously.  _ “But you see, a lot of these societies will have been affected strongly by their Stargate and Goa’uld connection, so I think there’ll be a lot to develop there.” _

Roy looks him over cursorily and then shrugs.  _ “Okay. Sounds good.”  _ He taps one of his guys and flips open a folder between them.

_ “You…really?”  _ Daniel blinks dumbly. That was easy.

The sergeant turns back to him with a shrug.  _ “Doc, this is a revolution in military affairs from grand strategy all the way down to individual communication protocols. I’d love it if the cultural implications were all I needed. You wanna write a memo on that, I’ll read it.”  _ Beside him, the sergeant major steps up and offers a nod for his tact.

Daniel turns around and sees that Sam is back as well, and Jack for that matter. “Hi, guys.”

“Come on, Danny boy, time to go.” Jack motions rapidly and turns on his heel.

Daniel snags him to a stop. “Hold on, Jack. There’s a sergeant here somewhere that I think you need to meet. Some of these guys really need to understand you better.”

Jack feels their table of top Special Forces staff start decidedly not staring at him. Great. Big help there, Daniel. “Absolutely. Later.”

“Jack, this is important.” Daniel shrugs him off reprovingly. “You can’t just come in and leave; this guy is like Sam’s sergeant or something, and I don’t think he’s the only one upset.”

Jack feels Carter’s eyes widen beside him. Because if there’s one thing Jack needed right now it was to remind her exactly how pissed off her old organization is. “Daniel, I  _ have to go _ .” Jack curses himself for walking into this position and fumbles for a way to leave despite that lecture. “It’s—”

“I need you for something, Daniel. It’s important.” Sam cuts in on them both without actually looking at either.

Daniel drops his hand. “Oh. Sure, sorry.” He grabs his tray and excuses himself from the table of concertedly silent sergeants.

Jack herds them both out quickly while trying to decipher why Carter pulled him out of that.

Daniel catches up with her as they get out of the room. “So what’s up, Sam?”

She keeps walking straight and looking at the elevator. Good question.

“I need Carter fast. Don’t know about you yet. Go read Teal’c’s stuff or something.” Jack punches too much agitation into the elevator call. “Carter—”

“ _ Ja-ack. _ Come on; you have a real problem in there. And I think you know it. Even  _ Sam’s  _ sergeant is really upset about this. You have to tell her the truth.”

Sam loses control of her eyebrows briefly while staring at the slit in the elevator doors.

“Captain Carter knows all the truth she needs to know.” Jack comes just short of yanking the elevator doors open. They move too slowly. Need to fix that.

Daniel keeps his hands down to avoid throttling his friend. “She needs to know  _ why _ you weren’t thinking clearly last year. They all do.”

“I should’ve been.” Jack takes up Carter’s practice of avoiding all eye contact.

“Dammit Jack!” Daniel’s hands shoot to the height of his friend’s neck. “You just can’t keep holding yourself to that standard! No one trusts your judgment  _ at all _ now. Sam doesn’t even.”

“Dammit, Daniel—”

“Sir, I—”

“— _ I _ don’t trust my judgment!” Jack’s hears himself erupt over her and then goes back to staring at the dull metal cage around him.

Daniel’s blinks at the sudden silence in the elevator car. “Jack…I wouldn’t’ve  _ wanted  _ to follow someone who could think clearly after what you went through. If you didn’t do everything right…” He trails off. It’s the first time he’s said that out loud.

“Other people could’ve done it better. A lot of them.” Jack’s stare wavers enough to catch Carter flinching next to him.

Daniel finally lapses into silence. He can’t do this anymore.

The elevator door mercifully dings open. Jack turns to his civilian grimly. “Your gear and some papers from Teal’c are in your quarters. Sleep soon. Big day tomorrow, dress for success.”

Daniel shakes his head involuntarily. “Jack, you can’t…” He sighs and remembers to give up. “I really can’t sleep.”

“Also I had SG-2’s medic spike your coffee.” Jack holds open the elevator and gestures him out.

Daniel blinks. Come to think of it, he is feeling a little off now.

Sam takes Daniel’s tray automatically as his grip slackens. His blinks and mutters something that may not be English at Jack.

The colonel quickly maneuvers him out the door. “Third room on your left.” He lets the doors slide closed and puffs out a breath.

Sam fidgets uncomfortably as far away from him as possible in the metal cage. “Sir, if there’s something you need to tell me…”

Jack schools his face quickly. “Eight good men are dead, Captain. Maybe I could’ve stopped it. Do you see anything I could say to change that?”

“No, sir.” Sam inhales too loudly. “We’re at war.” The largest one they could imagine. Larger really, the biggest anyone’s ever known. And she’s stuck in it with him.

Jack finds himself looking at her despite his better efforts. “Yes, we are. Words can’t undo that. Not mine, at least.”

“They might change how it happens now.” Sam realizes she’s straining to see him peripherally.

Jack feels his head tilt. It’s deliberately innocuous, but it surprises him anyway. He figured he’d long since dug his grave when it came to her. “Maybe.” Trouble is he still doesn’t have a good answer. Which makes him suddenly remember to get his goddamn act together. “But right now I need you in the War Room for the next Joint Chiefs call.”

“You what?” Sam’s head snaps up. “You’re kidding.” He doesn’t look kidding. “You’re serious.” God, he is going to be difficult.

Jack finds himself trying to smile at that. “Sort of. For now I need a talking paper for Hammond. Gate and Control Room budget priorities.”

She nods in palpable relief. “Yes, sir, of course. I have our Project Giza plans. I’ll walk Catherine’s department leads through it using tonight’s training and the revised Abydos reports.”

Jack nods sharply. “Good. You have twenty-three minutes.”

Sam gets that kidding-not-kidding look in her eye again.

The urge to smile sneaks back against his jaw. “I got a call on the way down. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs just left the Situation Room, and he’ll squeeze a meeting in with Hammond in…twenty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Hammond wants to explain to him how we’ll start handling this war.” Well, mostly examine if it  _ is  _ a war, but that’s at least a problem Jack can keep off Carter’s plate. Her job is mostly just to make them sound competent.

Sam tries to rub the nerves out of her neck. “And how often will be we be updating those plans with the Chairman, sir?”

Jack shrugs. “Depends on how wrong we get it the first time.” He’s seen that movie; aliens destroy the Earth.

Okay, now she’s dizzy.

In retrospect Jack should probably should’ve eased his twenty-eight-year-old astrophysics director into the special ops apocalypse humor. “That’s normal.”

Sam’s eyes jerk to him in perpetual confusion.

He tries to shrug off his own reaction. “The latent nauseousness that comes from using your own professional judgment to save or doom billions of real people. It’s normal. Welcome to special ops.”

Sam tries unsuccessfully to swallow. “Good to know.”

The elevator dings open, and Jack starts toward her lab at a run.

Sam catches up to him in more confusion. “I can have the talking paper to you in twenty minutes, sir. Fifteen.”

He raises his voice over their footfalls. “Better sort it out in person. We can conference into Hammond from your lab.”

Sam’s nod is a little too jumbled. “Of course, sir.” It takes her a beat. “Right, so the first priority is the Iris, at least up to Failsafe Seven which is triple manual control.” She shakes out the cobwebs. “Then you’ll want Gate Room sensing and containment, both aerosol and electromagnetic as well as tactical foothold. I’d budgeted it through Class Twelve on all three, but we might need through Nineteen with the war plus a few million dollars in contingency. We’ll refine the levels from Appendix R.” Sam takes two strides to consider what percentage of the population a Class Nineteen-resistant Goa’uld bioweapon might kill. “Or maybe Twenty-Three, Nineteen, and Twenty. Or…” She shakes her head.

Jack grimaces for her. “Where else does the money go?”

Sam reorients as they jog past yet another electrical crew. “Next on the list would be UAV launch and Gate reorientation operations. But I’ll have to coordinate so much of that with the minutia of new mission tactics that I’m not even sure where to start.”

Jack nods at the mindfulness. “And that’d be the other reason I’m here.” He’s also somehow writing as they jog, though Sam’s basically at a full run to keep up.

Sam swallows nervously and swipes open her office door. “You’re saying it goes away, sir. The nausea.”

Jack looks at her in exaggerated confusion. “I said it was  _ normal _ .”

Sam ends up traveling more over than around her desk. She’s handed him half a dozen folders by the time her computer lights up.

Jack smiles at the impressive combination of efficiency and panic. He feels better about it somehow. “Best not dwell on that though, Captain. Tomorrow—” he glances at his watch, “today is a new day.”

**0002 Hours on 14 February 1997 (Day 3 of the SGC)**


End file.
